Various plastic bags are presently manufactured and being used for holding and storing all types of materials and items ranging from nuts and bolts to meats and cookies. Such bags are generally made of a thin film of plastic and also range in size and holding capacity. Bags of this character are available to home owners as single bag units. Some of such bags include reclosable zippers whereby the bag is selectively openable and closable.
Deli markets and manufacturers of various products also utilize plastic bags for holding and storing their products. In these applications, it is quite often important that the bags be quickly accessible and fillable. Although numerous mechanical means have been devised for filling plastic bags with a desired product, many bag uses, such as in delis, unit dose pill packs, parts packaging by O.E.M.'s, butcher shops, etc., require manual filling of the bags.
In the past, various bags have been devised for such manual filling and for making the bags easily accessible and fillable. In this regard, Membrino, U.S. Pat. No. 4,560,068 discloses pads of plastic bags including a plurality of bag units stacked upon one another and attached at a salvage portion. A score line is provided in the salvage portion adjacent the mouth of the bag so as to permit tearing away of each bag unit from the salvage portion and, thereafter, for filling as needed. Furthermore, Membrino, U.S. Pat. No. 4,305,503 discloses connecting together the salvage portions so as to resist the forward pull on the lip of a bag as the bag is being torn away so that the bag may more readily be substantially fully opened and severed from the respective salvage portion at the same time. Another U.S. patent entitled "Block Sealed Flexible Saddle Bags", U.S. Pat. No. 4,733,780 also discloses facilitating the removal of a bag from a stack or block.
These various pads of bags adapted for manual filling, however, are undesirable and include substantial shortcomings and drawbacks. For example, most such packs require that the bag unit first be completely ripped away from the pack prior to being able to obtain access to the opening for opening the bag and filling the same. As can be appreciated, this is a two hand operation and, quite often, requires tremendous coordination by the user to properly hold the bag open and fill the same with various size products. Further, even if the bag unit is openable while on the pack, such as those disclosed in above discussed U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,305,503 and 4,560,068, the user quite often must still rip the bag unit completely off of the pack, shake the bag briskly so as to more fully open the mouth, and then proceed in the filling operation, again with two hands. Furthermore, such packs for manual filling operations do not utilize bag with reclosable zippers which are quite often desirable by the end user for selectively opening and closing the bag as desired.
Accordingly, a need exists for bag units in packs, or otherwise, for use in manual filling operations whereby the bag units are easily openable prior to being severed from the pack or stand that they may be fixed upon. The bags must also be easily fillable, preferably by a single operator or user using one hand for holding the bag open and the other for dropping the various products therein. The bags should also be easily openable and severable from the pack or stand and must also preferably utilize a reclosable zipper.